Baby names reveal political views?

- A new study of baby names does, indeed, show that parents in liberal neighborhoods are more likely to choose softer, more feminine sounds, such as "L," for their babies' names, while conservative parents go for macho-sounding K's, B's and D's.

- The same research finds that liberal, well-educated parents are more likely to pick obscure names for their children, while conservative, well-educated parents take a more conventional naming path.

- Notably, the kinds of uncommon names chosen by upper-class liberals differed from the unusual names picked by people of lower socioeconomic status, Oliver said. Lower-status moms tend to invent names or pick unusual spellings of common names (Andruw instead of Andrew, for example).

- For both boys and girls, liberals tended to pick more feminine-sounding choices, such as Liam, Ely and Leila — names that include lots of L sounds and soft-A endings, including popular choices Ella and Sophia.

- Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to pick names with more masculine-sounding K’s, B’s, D’s and T’s, such as Kurt.

- A couple of famous national political families demonstrate that pattern, Oliver said: The liberal Obamas named their daughters Sasha and Malia, both names heavy on A’s and L’s, whereas the conservative Palin family picked more masculine-sounding names for both their boys and girls, particularly Track, Trig, Bristol and Piper (although third daughter Willow got a softer-sounding moniker).http://www.livescience.com/37196-pol...aby-names.html

So, do you agree/disagree? Do the results match up with your naming style?

"Notably, the kinds of uncommon names chosen by upper-class liberals differed from the unusual names picked by people of lower socioeconomic status, Oliver said. Lower-status moms tend to invent names or pick unusual spellings of common names (Andruw instead of Andrew, for example)."

I think this perception is the reason so many regulars on the boards try to convince others not to use made-up names or uber-youneek spellings of common names.

I wonder though - is political views or socio-economic class that correlates more strongly to naming patterns? The LiveScience articles seems to conflate the two.

The article is a bit odd. They use the Palins as an example of high SES Conservative naming style but it seems like they would fit in the low SES class. High SES Conservatives should prefer more traditional names.

It could be education that's really the determinant and not SES. A liberal will prefer softer/weird names but depending on education it will be either made-up soft/weird or obscure soft/weird.